<p>abike: i resent your accusation at calling me pseudo-racist. If you actually read what my post says i don't say I was *<strong><em>ed because I perceived reverse-racism (which I didn't perceive, for the record). I said I was *</em></strong>ed because I (admittedly, I now see it was incorrectly, but that doesn't make the logic bad, necessarily) attributed the inclusion of the victims race in the letter to cornell's hyper-diversity nonsense which (ready for the connection?) included those worthless diversity arches.</p>
<p>also, i didn't know anything about racial slurs or anything preceding the attack. all I knew was word of mouth "someone got stabbed" and then later, right before I posted, i got that email...but now from what I hear from you all it seems the attack WAS racially motivated.</p>
<p>As I said, I initially attributed the mention of race in the description of the incident to Cornell's overzealous diversity nonsense. My eyes actually skipped over the word caucasian until someone pointed it out in this thread much later on in time, which is why the inclusion of the african american description stuck out so much to me, and why I didn't associate the inclusion of race in the letter to the normal inclusion of race in a standard perpetrator/victim crime description. But while we're on the subject of debating my opposition to the diversity arches, here's where I stand. It's fine to say we promote diversity and that we are open to all, but I really don't feel like Cornell has a particularly huge edge over any other generally diverse campus; yes it has the edge over many less diverse (though still great schools) campuses, like Brandies for example. Yes we're very diverse here at Cornell, but it's not some magical place where everyone is 100% politically correct and completely unbiased and utterly race-blind in whom they associate with, where the membership in all the clubs mirrors the racial demographics of the student body, yadda yadda. Cornell is living in the past, a time when it was something very special to be as welcoming as Cornell is and always has been. Nowdays, though, it's just not so unusual to want blacks hispanics jews and asians attending the school. </p>
<p>That's why I feel building $40,000 of red arches in the name of "woohoo, diversity!" as a testament to the world of how diverse we are doesn't do anything "[for black people]" as you put it, or, as someone less racially aligned, like myself, would put it, "to promote diversity" . $40,000 would have gone a lot farther in other ways to help promote racial tolerance, and I honestly feel would have gone a lot farther in advancing quality of life of all students (of all races) with some small capital improvement like the nice showerheads I made an example of above.</p>
<p>It's not that I don't support diversity...i absolutely do, and I do so very strongly...it's that I think the diversity arches were utterly ineffective, and in fact a PR blunder rather than positive or even neutral move.</p>
